On April 21st, 2022, the Her Campus organization at William Paterson University hosted the Mr. And Ms. Her Campus pageant! After four years, the club was able to organize a fantastical and entertaining event with a full house of not only WPU students, but family and friends as well. Besides the show itself, the club held a bake sale, raffled off baskets, and gave out free Her Campus merchandise all at the same time! I placed a couple of tickets in the raffle basket and snagged a delicious vegan brownie!
Unlike other pageants, MMHC had twelve contestants, six girls, and six boys, all from different class levels. I had the honor of interviewing three of those contestants and got their before and after experiences with the pageant. As the night was on a tight schedule, I was not able to interview more contestants, but am grateful for the three I was able to speak to.
Contestant 1: Joselito Paz Jr.
Before the pageant
Q: “Why did you sign up for Mr. And Ms. Her Campus?”
A: “I signed up to do MMHC because of the fact that I was already involved in the pageants around here at William Paterson since my sophomore year. People get annoyed at me when I say this, but I was the former winner of Theta Phi Guy from the sorority Theta Phi Alpha around 2020 before the pandemic happened. I like it because it gets everybody involved and I don’t get shy around crowds. For me, I am naturally a performer. I love dancing for people. My fraternity Lambda Sigma Upsilon Latino Fraternity Inc., we do strolls and performances in front of different colleges. So naturally, I feel more comfortable performing and dancing in front of people. As well as meeting other contestants and friends who do pageant shows. Overall, it is a nice networking opportunity, but instead of meeting at a table and eating together, everybody is just chanting together!”
Q: “Pre-game jitters but, how do you feel right now?”
A: “Honestly, the big thing right now is that it has not hit me that I am graduating. For me, I am excited and I have homework and stuff, but I am not going to miss school as much. I will miss being a student leader, so when you guys came up to me about MMHC, my one thought was I already did two other pageants, so another one? At the same time, who’s going to judge me because it’s fun! I’m just a high functioning extrovert so I am excited and I cannot wait to do my last pageant here at William Paterson University.”
Q: “Why do you believe you should be Mr. Her Campus?”
A: “I believe I should be Mr. Her Campus because I do things in moderation, and I don’t ask for anything in return. I do what I can when I can and when I ask people for help, I make sure to help them too. Because at the end of the day, I just want to do this pageant for the community aspect of it, I am pretty sure the other contestants will have a hyped, crowd-pleasing answer. For me, I want to have fun and be happy and see everybody united in the multipurpose room, having a great college experience. I have two answers, I want to have fun and be me, my other answer is because I am apologetically myself and if there is anything the audience should take from my performance is that they should be apologetically themselves too. I always say the more you learn from someone, the more you learn about yourself. I hope we all learn from each other so we can learn more about ourselves. The audience too as I hope they become more involved as students on campus.
Joselito’s talent was dance poetry, and we wish him the best of luck for when he graduates from William Paterson University!
Contestant 2: Ashley Shoemaker
After the Pageant
Q: “How do you feel after the whole pageant?”
A: “I would say it was super fun to participate in and it was overall well ran. Everybody was so organized and pretty much put me in my place and wherever I had to go. I was not confused the entire time. I thought it was fun!”
Q: “What are you going to do now since the pageant is over?”
A: “Right now I am focusing on not failing my classes, just kidding! I am focused on school right now and I had opportunities to do another pageant similar to MMHC but unfortunately with the timing being so close to the end of semester. I just decided it wasn’t a good idea, but I would love to do something like that again next year.”
Q: “Will we see you at next year’s pageant?”
A: “Most likely, I don’t know if I’ll be a contestant but we’ll see.”
For Ashley’s talent, she performed “If I Ain’t Got You” by Alicia Keys, and wish her luck for the rest of her academic years at William Paterson University!
Contestant 3: Nate Reilly
Before the Pageant
Q: “For the pageant, you are going to perform magic right? How long have you been practicing magic overall?”
A: ” When I was a kid, I was really into magic, and it was a weird little hobby of mine. A lot of my tricks involved fire. I was not allowed to light things on fire for this show, so as a result, I had to suddenly scramble to find a bunch of new tricks. I am trying to get back into the swing of things just essentially in a different genre. So I can’t light things on fire and I get it’s a safety issue and I totally respect that! They’re just looking out for the community
Q: “Why did you sign up for Mr. And Ms. Her Campus?”
A: “Honestly, I thought it would be fun, you know it’d be nice to win, but I’m not there to win, I’m there to have fun!
Q: “Pre-game jitters but, how do you feel right now?”
A: “I feel under prepared, but I feel as if I had prepared for weeks, I would still feel under prepared. Right now, I do feel a little under prepared because I am nervous, but that’s my thing. That’s how my anxiety manifest and I’m asking what am I missing or am I forgetting this or that?”
Q: “Is this your first time performing in front of a crowd?”
A: “No it is actually not. I was in a musical in middle school, I was the Cat in the Hat. Then I did plays in high school. I have taught some classes too as I want to go into higher education, so I have a bit of experience there. I did a play in college once and like I used to do some standup comedy too. I took a standup comedy class, performed some standup comedy a few times, so expect some of that in the show tonight because I will combine magic and comedy. This is my first time performing magic in front of a crowd. Crowds don’t scare me.
Q: “Why do you believe you should be Mr. Her Campus?”
A: “That’s a great question. Honestly because I feel as though I am bringing something new to the scene, like you know I’m doing my stuff a little unconventionally. I am still going to dress formal, but I will add my own flare to it. I am still doing a talent show but with my own flare. Also I think it is good representation for the transgender community as I am a transgender man. I have been on testosterone for four to five years now. I don’t know if any transgender man has even won Mr. Her Campus so I think that would be great representation for the community!
After the Pageant
Q: “How do you feel after the whole pageant?”
A: “I feel good, well I also feel tired as it was a lot of work, but it was a good time. I feel good about how it happened, how I performed, and how everybody else did! It was good.”
Q: “What are you going to do now since the pageant is over?
A: “After this pageant, I have a few plans in place. I have to get through the honors week which is coming up and my presentation is next Friday. My project was a year-long novel. After that too, my comic book club is working on publishing our first independent magazine, known as a zine. Zines are independently published magazines that focus on one to two issues, so we are producing that. And then graduation coming up!”
Nate’s talent was a unique act, where he performed magic mixing in stand-up comedy at the same time! Best of luck to Nate and his path after graduating from William Paterson University.
In the end, the winners of our Mr. and Ms. Her Campus pageant were Eric Lynch, who recited moving poetry, and Toniann Sosa, who recited a monologue! There was very tough competition out there, especially with twelve different contestants! On the behalf of William Paterson University’s Her Campus team, thank you to all family, friends, and students who came out and supported the club! Can’t wait to see everybody next year :)